Washington Nationals Recap: Michael Taylor’s Home Run Not Enough In 3-1 Loss To Pirates

By Ricky Keeler | Jul 26, 2015

The Washington Nationals went up against one of the best pitchers in the National League in Gerrit Cole (14-4, 2.24 ERA) as they tried to secure a split of their four game series with the Pittsburgh Pirates (57-41) at PNC Park. While Michael Taylor hit a home run for the second straight day, the Pirates were able to score a couple of runs against Joe Ross (2-3, 3.03) , which made the difference in a 3-1 win.

The Nats got on the board first in the top of the third inning. With two outs, Taylor crushed a solo shot to right center. His eighth home run of the season and second in as many days put the Nationals up in front 1-0. However, they would give the lead back in the bottom of the inning.

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Chris Stewart would start the inning off with a base hit to right. After Cole moved him over to second via a sacrifice bunt, Gregory Polanco hit a base hit to center. Taylor made a good throw to the plate, but Wilson Ramos was unable to field it, which tied the game at one. Polanco would end up going all the way to third on the play.

Later in the inning, after Ross hit Starling Marte with a pitch, Andrew McCutchen gave the Pirates the lead with a RBI single to center, scoring Polanco. Pittsburgh would tack on another run against Ross in the bottom of the fourth when Neil Walker hit a solo shot to center field for his ninth of the season.

Even though Ross ran into some trouble, he put together another quality start. He went six innings, gave up three runs on five hits, struck out seven, and walked one on just 78 pitches (51 strikes), but lost his second straight start.

The Nationals would score one run against Cole, but they had some chances to add on more runs. In the top of the seventh, the Nats had runners at the corners and one out, but Ramos grounded into an inning ending 6-4-3 double play.

One inning later, Anthony Rendon would hit a pinch-hit single to center with one out. After Danny Espinosa hit a two-out single, Clint Hurdle went to the left-hander, Tony Watson, to face Bryce Harper. Watson would get Harper to ground out to first on a good play by Sean Rodriguez to get out of the jam.

As for Gerrit Cole, the Pirates’ ace went 7.2 innings, gave up one run on seven hits, struck out eight, and did not walk a batter on 103 pitches (69 strikes) to record his 14^th win of the year.

Mark Melancon would retire the Nationals 1-2-3 in the top of the ninth to record his 32^nd save of the season. Even in a loss, however, Matt Thornton and Casey Janssen did not give up a hit in the seventh and eight inning respectively and combined to strike out two batters.

Next Game: After a day off Monday, the Washington Nationals (52-45) will be back in action Tuesday night when they begin a three game series against the Miami Marlins (41-57) at Marlins Park. You can catch the game at 7:10 PM ET on MASN2. Jordan Zimmermann (8-5, 3.30) gets the start for the Nationals against Jose Fernandez (3-0, 2.77) for the Marlins.

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